


magicians are con artists who steal both your money and your ability to trust

by emily_420



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! GX
Genre: Internalised Homophobia, M/M, fubuki is a benevolent deity of chaos, unrequited gx rivalshipping, unrequited valentineshipping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-11
Updated: 2017-10-11
Packaged: 2019-01-16 00:39:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,311
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12332010
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emily_420/pseuds/emily_420
Summary: The Love Magician's next big act is, apparently, pulling relationships out of a hat. Or a bottle, as it were.





	magicians are con artists who steal both your money and your ability to trust

**Author's Note:**

> in a way, this is a parody of weird anime fillers where stuff just happens and it's kind of funny but the second-hand embarrassment kills you dead. in another way, this is me messing around with surrealism. and in the third, realest way, it's just very gay. i love my children
> 
> set vaguely in the start of season two before manjoume is brainwashed & also featuring the judai who doesn't know what a fiance is

Fubuki breezes into Manjoume’s wing of the Red dorm with a bottle, an innocuous smile that fools precisely Judai and no one else, and a scheme. The group pauses, taking their attention away from the movie that never quite held it in the first place, and stares at him as one vast, many-eyed body.

“What is it, Fubuki-nii-san,” Asuka asks tiredly from the couch, where she has strategically placed Judai between herself and Manjoume, who is sulking with the popcorn and steadfastly avoiding getting any of Judai’s many hairs in his mouth.

“It occurred to me,” he says mystically, coming to stand in front of the TV like it’s some grand podium, “that you poor children have probably never had the chance to play spin the bottle, and as your senpai and mentor, I feel it’s my duty to correct that.”

“I’m leaving,” Asuka says flatly, rising from the couch and leaving with her usual grace and dignity, and any excitement Manjoume might have felt dies a sad, tragic death.

“Oh well,” Fubuki says, “I guess that was bound to happen. But still! You have to play spin-the-bottle with your friends at least once! It’s a rite of passage!”

“Is it now,” Shou says from the floor, those three words holding as much disdain as is conceptually possible. Misawa, cross-legged next to him, has a face on him like he strongly agrees, but would also like to avoid saying so at cost of death.

“As far as I know,” Misawa starts very carefully, as if Fubuki actually cares if anyone disagrees with him or not, “it is a common practice among teenagers, but – with all due respect – I don’t see that it adds any significant value to one’s youth.”

Surely, Misawa believes he’s made his case with psychology on his side. The poor fool clearly hasn’t realised that Fubuki is a chaotic being outside the reach of trivial things like science and reason. “Oh, but it does!” Fubuki says cheerfully, presenting the empty bottle, which presumably once held something that was very much banned on campus, as if it is now filled with the secrets of the universe.

“Spin the bottle,” Fubuki informs them quite seriously, “is a wondrous game that can open new doors you’d never thought were available to you. It will give you confidence, make you question yourself, and ultimately strengthen the bonds between you all. Yes! That is the power of the bottle – to build up not just the individual, but also the unit!”

“That sounds cool!” Judai, the lone member of the group to be moved at all by this performance, says excitedly. “So how does it work?”

There’s a resounding pause where they all consider this piece of information. Manjoume is somehow smug and frustrated at the same time, which is not a new experience for him around Judai, but not one he necessarily enjoys, either. Honestly, he thinks to himself, even Misawa knows what it is. _Misawa_. How Judai managed to make it through middle school without anything having any bearing on relationships or sexuality entering his consciousness was a miracle the likes of which was surely unprecedented.

For the brief few moments where Fubuki happily explains spin the bottle to Judai, Manjoume enters another state of being that is far removed from anything related to Judai or bottles. And then he’s back, and quite possibly mirroring Shou, Misawa and Kenzan’s sour but relieved expressions – sour that any of this is happening in the middle of their movie evening, but relieved that they aren’t the ones who had to bite the bullet and fill Judai in.

Not that Judai gets why pressing faces with your friends is an activity that the average teenager would rather jump off a cliff than consider. “Okay,” he says, confused, “but I don’t know how to do that.”

Shou cuts in before Fukubi can let some new horror escape his mouth. “It doesn’t matter, Aniki. We’re not playing this game, right, guys?”

Kenzan nods emphatically on Shou’s other side. Flanked by him and Misawa, Shou looks like a very small boss-man with his henchmen. Fubuki’s smile gains an even eerier dimension to it. “Oh,” he says, feigning innocent again, “Shou-kun, don’t tell me you’re afraid you’ll have to kiss Kenzan-kun?”

“No!” Shou protests reflexively, and then seems to realise all sorts of implications as a veritable salad of emotions flitter across his stricken face. “I mean, not that I _want_ to – but it’s not like I’m _scared_ , either–“

“So you wouldn’t mind?” Fubuki smiles sweetly. Shou frowns his frowniest frown. “Well, I suppose it doesn’t matter. Since Kenzan is _definitely_ too scared to kiss you, Shou-kun.”

“I am not!” Kenzan protests, as reflexively as Shou had. Manjoume, seeing clearly what Fubuki is up to and not looking forward to the verbal warfare that’s sure to come, tunes the rest out. Next to him, Judai looks as puzzled as ever. Manjoume realises he still has the popcorn in his lap and offers the bowl to Judai to give the boy’s poor exhausted brain a break and receives a slap on the shoulder and several hairs in his mouth for the effort. He removes them primly and discards them over the edge of the sofa to get vacuumed up later.

On the floor, Misawa is carefully edging away from Shou and Kenzan, clearly trying to avoid being pounced on to decide who’s right. Fubuki stands in the middle of the room, backlit by the paused movie, arms crossed and inordinately proud.

Just as Shou and Kenzan progress to a form of mouth-based psychological battle that Manjoume frankly could have gone without witnessing, Asuka strides back in with a spray bottle and a cross look.

“Fubuki!” she chides, all formality down the trash chute along with the nice evening they had been having before pestilence showed his face. “If you keep messing with people like this I’m telling our parents you’ve been drinking,” she tells him, and sprays him right in his smug face.

Apparently, this is all it takes to get rid of him.

.

A few nights later, Manjoume is poking moodily at a fire in the forest. Things in the Red dorm had gotten weirder than before, which should have been functionally impossible, but it seems Fubuki has no problems breaking the laws of the universe. While Kenzan and Shou had previously absconded to Ra now and then – ostensibly to see their other friends, but Manjoume had heard them say it was for the food when Judai wasn’t around – they had both taken up the habit of making sure they’re around other people at all times, as if they can’t trust themselves to be alone without jumping each other.

That’s weird enough. Manjoume could no longer look at either of them without the memory of their aggressive making out helpfully coming to the forefront of his traitorous mind. What’s worse, Judai has decided that kissing looks very exciting and would someone please do it with him.

It was terrible. Awful. Just the worst. Manjoume was barely restraining himself from agreeing and kissing Judai’s stupid pretty mouth until he understood what it meant.

It was a Bad Idea. The kind of Bad Idea that his brothers would probably not like. Manjoume scowls as hard as his eyebrows can scowl and prods the fire like it’s the one responsible for his emotional hang-ups.

“Oh, there you are,” someone calls, and Manjoume twists around to see Misawa walking towards him through the dark in the sweatpants he sleeps in and his school boots. “Judai said you’d gone missing,” Misawa says as he takes a seat on the log Manjoume had conscripted as a seat. “I think he thinks maybe you ran off to North again.”

Manjoume snorts. “Nope. Still here.”

For a few minutes they sit without speaking, watching the fire and listening to the bats shrieking in the trees above them. Manjoume is glad Misawa is here; he doesn’t particularly like being alone, and Misawa is probably his best friend, even if they haven’t talked about it. They tend to gravitate towards each other, after all – sitting together and commenting softly – Misawa always does make him feel especially warm–

Oh. So that’s what that is.

“So what’s the matter?” Misawa asks, not looking at him. Manjoume appreciates that. It’s like he understands his vulnerabilities and has chosen to respect them. I, Manjoume realises, have it bad.

“Judai is an idiot,” he says, instead of ‘I just realised I have three crushes and I don’t know what to do with them.’

Misawa nods sagely. “What did he do now?”

Manjoume sighs as if he has the collective weight of Jupiter’s moons on his shoulders. He might as well for all he’s suffering. “Well, since those other two have apparently realised that making out like they’re trying to punish each other is better than actually fighting, Judai has decided that he wants to try it too. And neither of them will have the decency to kiss him, because they ‘respect him too much as a brother,’ or some other nonsense. So he won’t leave me alone.”

“I see,” Misawa says, quiet and serious, the sound of his voice camouflaged among the crackling of the fire. Their shoulders are touching; Manjoume holds very still in an attempt to act nonchalant. Misawa still doesn’t look at him as he asks, “You’re scared, right?”

A sideways look at Misawa’s face, bathed in firelight, tells him that he’s not being made fun of. “Of what?”

Misawa glances at him, slightly evaluating. “Something real.” Before Manjoume can let out a weak protest – something about how his love for Asuka was 100% genuine, no doubt – Misawa ploughs forward like a steam train in midwinter. “You know. Like, if something actually happens, you can’t pretend you’re not feeling what you’re feeling.”

A noise comes from Manjoume’s throat that may or may not have wanted to be words. “How’d you know?”

“Asuka,” Misawa says with a wry smile. He looks Manjoume directly in the eyes and Manjoume gets warmer in the face than sitting moodily in front of a fire for forty-five minutes would call for and tries to look very interested in the way the twigs are slowly turning to ash.

“I _do_ like her, you know,” Manjoume mutters. “I just also…”

“I wasn’t trying to say you didn’t.” Misawa leans his elbows on his knees. For someone who’s wearing a hasty mix of school uniform and pyjamas, he looks pretty mature. “It just seems to me that you focus on your feelings for her because it’s safe. I get that.”

Manjoume blinks at him. “You should be a therapist.”

He’s gifted with a chuckle for that. “No thanks.” There’s a beat in between, a slice of the night where that one chuckle curls gently around them and lingers like sweet incense. Then Misawa asks, “Is it harder for you? With your brothers? You don’t have to tell me, but.”

Manjoume considers the offered out, considers Misawa’s hunched-over shoulders and the way he’s rubbing his hands together, the slightest admission of cold. “Yes,” he says, blunt and more than a little distant.

A bat chatters, in that squeaky way of theirs. “I’m sorry,” Misawa says softly. Manjoume swallows, and tries not to outwardly show how wondrously bittersweet it feels to have told someone that for the first time.

“Yeah,” Manjoume says, at a loss.

Even through the solid army of foot-soldier trees, the ocean wind reaches them, especially chilling in the enveloping night. “So, will _you_ kiss Judai?” Manjoume asks, half-curious, but mostly wanting to stop feeling like he’s going to cry. “Because at this rate he’s going to get desperate and ask Fubuki, and I don’t want to know what’ll happen if it comes to that.”

Misawa grins at him. “Well, if no one else will…”

Immediately, with the clarity and familiarity that comes from talking ambiguously about your sexuality with someone in the dead of night, Manjoume understands this to be Misawa’s own oblique way of coming out to him. He’s unexpectedly touched. “Go on then,” he says softly. “If you can live with yourself knowing that he hasn’t got a clue.”

His grin turns very wry very quickly. “Spoilsport.”

Manjoume shrugs and stands, brushing off the back of his coat. “Come on, help me put this out.”

The fire is quickly stoned into non-existence in much the same way Manjoume wishes he could do with his feelings half the time. Just before they leave the sanctuary of the forest, Manjoume stills Misawa with a slight touch to his forearm.

“Hey, um…” For someone who’s spent the last while talking about their feelings, the words are hard to get out. Maybe he’s hit his monthly quota or something. “Thanks for this,” he says, mouth dry. “I, um, know you don’t really like this stuff…”

In the dark, he can’t read Misawa’s face, but his pause seems measured. “It’s okay,” Misawa says finally. “Sometimes you have to think about it. I… Well, it sounds stupid, but I realised I’m not just a brain. I have a heart too.”

“…You know emotions are chemically registered in the–” Misawa whacks him playfully on the arm before he can finish, and Manjoume giggles. “Well, I’m grateful anyway. You’re a good friend.”

Misawa pauses again and Manjoume becomes very conscious of the fact that he’s still touching his arm. He can’t read this silence. His fingertips curl slightly into the fabric of Misawa’s school jacket. “Huh,” Misawa says. “That’s the first time you’ve called me your friend.”

“Oh. Well.” Manjoume clears his throat primly. “Don’t get used to it,” he says, dropping his hand and marching off towards the welcoming halo of light around the Red dorm. He hears Misawa snort as he follows him and feels, somehow, that it’s going to be okay.

**Author's Note:**

> i imagine shou and kenzan like maeby & george micheal in that one arrested development episode where they start kissing whenever they're in the same room. this might be the worst thing i've ever produced
> 
> @kiheidie on twitter
> 
> [tumblr post](http://emily-420.tumblr.com/post/166284583153/title-magicians-are-con-artists-who-steal-both)
> 
> [ko-fi](http://ko-fi.com/B0B6A7KG)


End file.
